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The team of Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli was hardly challenged in its pursuit of the drivers points title. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Year in review: Grand-Am

December 24, 2013

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It was a little sad, the Grand-Am race Sept. 28 at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut: The Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series season's last round; Grand-Am's last race period; and for the foreseeable future, at least the last big-time sports-car race for the wonderful little Lime Rock Park.

We mentioned previously that the closest large newspaper (the Hartford Courant, 47 miles away) didn't have a word in the next day's sports section about the race, but it did send its correspondent to the local oval track instead (“State of Sports-Car Racing in the US: There's Work to Do,” Oct. 14).

Too bad. The entry list had a solid 33-car field, and a healthy crowd saw a good 173-lap race end with the Wayne Taylor Racing Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype not only on the top step of the podium but at the top of the season-long points battle. Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli were strong and consistent all year and no one else -- even the perennial favorite Ganassi Racing drivers Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas --could mount a challenge. That team finished the Lime Rock race in third, the driver points race in second.

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas finished second in the drivers points race, but were expected to compete for the title. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Ganassi's Pruett and Rojas (with guest drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Charlie Kimball) started the year winning the Rolex 24 in January, and it looked like it would be another championship year for Ganassi's Riley-BMW, but uncharacteristic crashes and mechanical failures kept that from happening.

Drivers Jon Fogarty/Alex Gurney finished third in driver points in Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing's Corvette DP. They were followed by Action Express Racing's Corvette DP with Christian Fittipaldi, Ryan Dalziel, Alex Popow and João Barbosa at the helm. Chevrolet took the engine championship over BMW and Ford, and the chassis title went to Riley over Coyote, Dallara and Lola.

The GT competition was just as close. Alessandro Balzan won the drivers' title in Scuderia Corsa's Ferrari 458, edging John Potter and Andy Lally, teammates in the Magnus Racing Porsche 911. A terrible day at Lime Rock torpedoed Magnus' points battle, with him 29th overall, 13th in class, while Balzan and teammate Leh Keen finished the race 14th overall, second in class, behind the March Racing Corvette of Eric Curran, Lawson Aschen-bach and Boris Said. Finishing fourth in class and 16th overall was enough to give Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro drivers Robin Liddell and John Edwards third place in the drivers' and teams' championships. Taking the Rolex 24 at Daytona opener in GT was an Alex Job-led Audi R8, but it was a one-shot for Job's team -- it never figured into the championship.

It was also one-and-done for the new GX class. It debuted at the Rolex 24 with considerable promise but was never able to grow its car count over the season. The diesel-powered Mazda 6s took the manufacturers' championship over Porsche and Lotus, but the drivers' and teams' championships went to Dr. Jim Norman and the BGB Motorsports Porsche Cayman crew. It started the season with a class win at Daytona. The Lime Rock finale had the BGB Porsche, two SpeedSource Mazdas and a lone Lotus Evora entered in GX, with SpeedSource chief Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long taking the race win.

For a lame-duck season, it was a solid year. Everyone went into Daytona knowing Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series were merging and that the combined Tudor United SportsCar Championship would debut at Daytona in 2014. There were ample car counts in DP and GT and tough competition in all 12 races. The series debuted in 2000, with the profile of the top class changing in 2003 when the Daytona Prototypes debuted, and that's pretty much how it remained until the end.